With Eyes on Jesus

It was so good to be back at Bible study Wednesday night. I was reminded again, how we are created to do life with others. I am so inspired, so drawn to love Christ more because of hearing others' stories of faith. God shows up in mighty ways in each individual story.

Idols were our topic of conversation last night. After reading, "Made to Crave," Lysa TerKeurst's new book, I have been tuned into a deeper awareness of what it is that satisfies and what substitutions or idols I crave. I have experienced some amazing fullness from God on one end and complete frustration and defeat on the other. I have been wondering why some areas of life are so horribly hard. Why is it that some days we feel unstoppable? Any charge against us will fall, no word or thing or situation will knock us down. Then the next day, any little infraction or temptation trips us up, causing us to count the fateful steps backward. We end up in places we never wanted to see again.

Is it lack of faith? Is it lack of focus? Lack of discipline? Spiritual blindness?

Years ago in my late teens I kept a journal with columns for dates and prayers and dates of responses. I liked and still like checklists. Each had spaces for the appropriate information to be filled in. I anticipated this project with great hope. The idea has potential if you have any amount of perseverance and possibly a mentor or accountability. At that point in my life, I hadn't developed a very deep level of reflection or accountability so many answers to prayers weren't filled in if they weren't rather immediate.

I have been learning the art of long term reflection, of pondering and of not expecting to have immediate responses for all prayers. I think this may have been developed as a young mom studying through the life of David with a good friend. Most of our sleep deprived conversations were piecemeal around diapers and feedings and tending toddlers. But because we had each other asking questions and picking up conversations where they last left off, we grew in our ability to think over time. We processed the story bit by bit over a period of many months.

The working out of our salvation is that way. It is often a slow steady process like the tortoise in Aesop's' legendary fable of the Tortoise and the Hare. As one lady around the Bible study table discussion said, "faith happens step by step by step." It's also what Dave talked about in a recent sermon when he spoke of God desiring relationship over results. When the focus is off the big flashy results it is easier to rejoice in the slow, thoughtful, prodding steps.

The other morning I experienced the joy of light being shed on my next step. I was reading in Hebrews 13 from the Message.

There should be a consistency that runs through us all.
For Jesus doesn't change - yesterday, today, tomorrow, He's totally Himself.

If God is consistent and His power is at work in us then we too, although not perfect, should experience consistency. Or put another way - we will grow into maturity.

Earlier on in Hebrews 12 I read the following and my understanding of how to train my mind was broadened.

When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility He plowed through, That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!

The story we are to review is written right before this statement:

Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how He did it. Because He never lost sight of where He was headed - that exhilarating finish in and with God - He could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now He's there, in the place of honour, right alongside God.

It would be overzealous for me to think I could merely take a mental walk through my remembrances of Jesus' story and the result be victory in areas of weakness. Kind of like assuming that filling in my prayer columns would bring about a better faith life. I think that might be what is meant by the term human striving - going through the motions trying hard to get a favourable response.

According to the Hebrews passage, consistency in our obedience to God comes by taking an item of His story and not just reading it but seeing it from every angle possible. Desiring it to become yours by learning it, knowing it, believing it, practising it and praying it earnestly so that your hope is securely in God's strength and perspective for every next step.

Where would you start? What area do you crave and find yourself caving? What story would you work through?

I believe I'll start at Matthew 4:1-11.